What Is The Barnett Shale?

Background

The Barnett Shale is a geological formation and rich source of natural gas located in the Fort Worth Basin in Northeast Texas. The shale consists of sedimentary rock made of clay and quartz and spans 5,000 square miles, beneath about 18 North Texas counties. The productive portion of the rock formation is located directly beneath Johnson, Tarrant and western Dallas counties, about a mile and a half underground. The shale contains an estimated 40 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, making it the largest onshore natural gas field in Texas and potentially in the United States.

The first well on the Barnett Shale was drilled in 1981 by Mitchell Energy. Drilling technology at that time didn’t allow for natural gas production in commercial quantities. Recent advances in drilling techniques such as hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have enabled energy producers to extract gas from the Barnett Shale more efficiently and economically. Today thousands of natural gas wells pepper the landscape above the shale, making it an economically significant area for the state of Texas.

The use of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on many of the wells has sparked some controversy in recent years, as critics of the drilling method have questioned its impact on nearby water supplies.

Denton might very well become a “test case” for other Texas towns that want to abolish fracking.

July 16, 2014

Doualy Xaykaothao KERA News The Denton City Council listened to seven hours of public testimonies from more than 100 people. After collecting thousands of signatures from local residents, a proposal to ban the oil and gas production technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” in the city of Denton will end up before voters this [...]

July 14, 2014

From KERA News: The city of Denton could take another step Tuesday toward becoming the only Texas city to permanently ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The city of Denton sits above the Barnett Shale, one of the country’s largest natural gas fields. There are already nearly 300 active gas wells. But concerned citizens filed a [...]

June 18, 2014

What’s behind the earthquakes in North Texas? StateImpact Texas and KERA will host a free public forum to explore the issues at 7 p.m. tonight, June 18, at the Azle High School Auditorium. North Texas has the largest onshore natural gas field in the state, and some experts believe it may be the largest in the country. [...]

June 17, 2014

“In Texas, I don’t think there’s anybody else doing quite what we’re doing,” says research scientist Kevin Schug. What Schug is doing can be found in a two big kitchen refrigerators in a lab on the campus of the University of Texas at Arlington. The fridges are crammed with hundreds of plastic bottles containing samples [...]

June 10, 2014

From KERA News: Barbara Brown is known to some of her neighbors as “The Digger.” She earned that nickname after collecting thousands of documents about oil and gas drilling, shortly after she says a swarm of minor earthquakes damaged her dream home, and those of her neighbors in Reno and Azle. Brown is an Army [...]

June 4, 2014

Hydrogen sulfide — a gas that smells like rotten eggs — can be insidious in its lethality. Its odor will be unmistakeable to its victim. But the gas can quickly numb the sense of smell, leading to the belief that the threat has passed. Unconsciousness and death can follow. “Unfortunately, if you come in contact [...]

May 30, 2014

The growing presence of methane in the water wells of a suburban Dallas community cannot be linked to nearby drilling activity even though methane levels have risen in several wells in the area since drilling began, according to a report released by the state’s oil and gas regulator. But other scientists who study the issue [...]

May 13, 2014

For perhaps the first time in its history, the state legislature held a hearing Monday about earthquakes. But we’re not talking about natural tremors, we’re talking about man-made earthquakes. Texas has seen quakes measuring 3.0 and higher increase tenfold since an oil and gas drilling boom began several years ago, with the first quake swarm [...]

May 9, 2014

SMU From the SMU progress report: “Preliminary earthquakes locations near Reno-Azle using the current seismic network. Events are scaled by magnitude and color coded by time of event. Two Salt Water Disposal Wells (SWD wells) that occur within a few kms of the earthquake sequence are shown.” North Texas is no longer a place you [...]